Columbophile book to be released in September!

Reader note – this book has now been published! Full details, including links to order, can be found here.

My dear friends, I’m over the moon to be able to announce that a Columbo book of my very own will be published next month!

Entitled The Columbo Companion 1968-78, the book is a collection of my reviews of all 45 ‘classic era’ Columbo episodes that aired between 1968’s Prescription: Murder and 1978’s The Conspirators. All the reviews have been revised and updated for print, and include new information not available at the time of publishing the original posts. There are even some very rare updates where I’ve changed my mind on an issue, sometimes after good-natured debate with readers of this very blog. Well done you…

As regular visitors to the site will know, my reviews go into great detail on every aspect of each episode, from the strength of the central clues and gotchas, to the performances, production values and key milestones in Columbo’s character development. What is changing in print is that the episode synopses have been abridged to provide a more succinct overview of each crime and its conclusion before the analysis kicks in. The aim of the book is for it to be an immediate companion to the Columbo viewing experience, wherever readers may be.

I’m delighted to report that Columbo authorial doyen Mark Dawidziak has supplied the foreword to the book, which will be published through Bonaventure Press (the publisher behind David Koenig’s sensational Shooting Columbo tome of 2021) with a release date of Tuesday September 20, 2022. There are also truly wonderful illustrations of the good Lieutenant and every killer throughout the book, courtesy of US-based artist (and the youngest Columbo fan I know in real life), Kosperry (see her work on Instagram here and Twitter here).

Weighing in at almost 350 pages, The Columbo Companion will retail for US$24.95 (or the equivalent in different parts of the world). It’ll be available to order on Amazon in the US, UK, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Poland, so I’ll holler when it goes live. There will also be a Kindle version for you digital readers out there, while Mrs Columbo is rumoured to have already placed her name on the waiting list at the library to get first dibs on it.

While Amazon will be the easiest way for folks to get hold of the book, I’m a staunch believer of supporting local bookstores whenever possible, so The Columbo Companion will be available to/through numerous wholesale distributors. If your local store accepts special orders and works with a distributor that carries the title, they will be able to order it in for you. If not, the store can contact Bonaventure Press directly via email to Bonaventure.press@gmail.com to arrange this.

I had originally hoped to have the book available in 2021, but my dear daughter’s illness put a stop to all that and I’m very pleased to have been able to rekindle it this year with the support of Bonaventure Press. I have no idea if it’ll sell any copies beyond my own family, but I can assure you that it’s just lovely to have my own contribution to Columbo lore ‘out there’ in the world of print. If my book ever shares the same shelf with David K’s Shooting Columbo and Mark Dawidziak’s The Columbo Phile, I’ll consider it a very great honour.

In unrelated news, I’m similarly thrilled to report the safe collection of my daughter’s NEW PUPPY, which we were granted through the Make a Wish Foundation as she continues her recovery from cancer. The adorable beast is a Silky Terrier – the precise breed of dog owned by Beth Chadwick’s overbearing mother in Lady in Waiting. I knew there would be a Columbo connection somewhere…

Thanks to all those generous souls who donated towards the upkeep of the blog this month. I will be passing the proceeds on to Make a Wish in recognition of the sterling work they’ve put in to bring this new bundle of impish joy into our lives.

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